Hong Kong vs. India; A comparison of Trash and TP

So I'm in HONG KONG right now... part of China as of 10 years ago. I flew in yesterday and here are some of my impressions.
1. Its really clean and really modern. I just came from India, and as much as I loved my time there, it was quite noticeable all of the trash everywhere... trash, trash, trash - on streets, in piles, near houses, behind houses, in train stations, everywhere (except where rich people lived, and near the embassies). And we saw why. People without thinking, its just what they do/part of their "learned practices", throw trash down anywhere. We were on a train and I was drinking some Chi tea in a small paper cup and had a mango juice in a box drink... when I was done, the older lady sitting next to me took both of them, and before I could stop her, just tossed it out the window, as the train sped along the tracks. I couldn't believe it. Another time, we were on a bus, and the man we were with had a whole handful of trash and he just pitched it out the window (it was paper and plastic trash - not just food). Again, amazement!!! We were at a store along the street, making a phone call, and the shop keeper brought out some kind of plastic wrapper and just threw it down into the street and walked back inside. And one final story, I had some plastic bottles I wanted to throw away (I felt bad about all the plastic we were using, but we needed to get pure water for our digestive system... it just wasn't so great for contributing to the waste problem) and asked a store owner where a trash can was. He said, Oh, don't worry about it, just throw it anywhere. And he was serious. Wow. That's how you get so much trash build up in India. Everyone does it (ok, maybe not everyone) and you have 1 billion people in that country, and everyday, if everyone drops one piece of trash, you get a billion pieces x 365 days/year = a lot of trash building up!! And you can see it (and smell it, esp near the piles... eeewww!) And the interesting thing - it was all ages of people, young, very young, middle, and old. I don't know if its the same among all economic classes of people - poor, middle, upper?? Someone will have to check that out. I know some people in India must be aware of the problem, b/c there are some signs around that say - Be Green and Clean!! But as of yet, I don't see a lot of impact... hopefully in the coming years, there will be growing awareness of the problem and working towards cleaning it up and a great solution. B/c the parts of India that didn't have trash (like in Agra, near the Taj Mahal; or up in Shimla near the Himalayas) are BEAUTIFUL... The other places are beautiful too, but just think HOW MUCH MORE if the trash wasn't there. So in contrast, Hong Kong is AMAZINGLY clean. Their streets look like they are swept, and nice trees, flowers, bushes lining everything - that I saw on the way from the airport. And the sky is nice and open, blue w/ clouds; the air doesn't smell as polluted. Hong Kong seems like its on a tropical-kind-of island... Tropical looking trees (not palm trees) on small mountains (more like hills) around the airport... NICE bus system - again, clean and nice; and the AIRPORT! wow, it was like walking into a different world. Modern, clean, modern, air conditioned, carpets new/fresh, bathrooms clean/modern, signs, helpful people everywhere (who worked at the airport to help people out)... really nice. And they had TOILET PAPER in the bathrooms. I was SO THANKFUL. Even though I appreciate that Indians are conserving on TONS of waste (remember 1 billion people x 1-3 bathroom uses/day = a lot of TP) b/c they don't use it, I do like the luxury myself!! In my science days, I learned that water is the universal solvent, so I'm sure it takes care of human wastes... but eek!! :) I'll devote another blog to using the toilet in India.